Note: As General Motors gets ready to shut Saturn's doors at the end of this year, I'd like to take a moment to look back at why the brand was created and how it evolved over the years, what made the cars and company so special to me, and also address some concerns about how Saturn's closure will impact the future of SaturnFans.com.

Later tonight the giant ball in Times Square will be lowered when the clock strikes twelve and 2010 will come to an end. It's been a emotional year for Saturn employees, owners, and fans; October 31st marked the end of General Motors' grand Saturn experiment. Of all the news articles I've written for SaturnFans.com over the past 15 years, this one has been by far the hardest for me to write. Saying goodbye is never easy, and this time is no different. To me Saturn was more than just another car or company: it represented a fresh approach to running a business, and more significantly, it was a symbolic entry in America's ideological battle against the best vehicles the "import" car companies had to offer.

General Motors today earlier this week that it will invest $47 million in its manufacturing facilities in Spring Hill, Tennessee and Bay City, Michigan to prepare for future product programs. The combined investments will result in 230 retained jobs in the US. This is part of a $1 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing operations announced by the company in January.

Attention SaturnFans.com Webmail users! Our longtime webmail provider, Everyone.net, will be ending access to free email accounts on Tuesday November 15th, 2016. Subscribers who upgrade to their Mail Plus Total Protection service will continue to have access to their "@mail.saturnfans.com" email addresses and will not be impacted. While on a personal level I am disappointed in the decision, Everyone.net says this change is part of ongoing efforts to reduce email abuse and improve security.

GM says it will invest $148 million to repurpose flexible machining and assembly equipment at its Spring Hill Manufacturing plant to build V8 engines to meet market demand, retaining approximately 200 jobs. The investment will enable Spring Hill to quickly add capacity to build the Small Block 6.2L V8 engine in the popular truck and SUV segment. This will be the first time Spring Hill will build V8 engines. The 6.2L truck engine is currently available in the Chevrolet Silverado Crew Cab, GMC Sierra Crew Cab, Yukon Denali, Yukon XL Denali and the Cadillac Escalade and Escalade ESV.

My girlfriend and I have been using the info on this forum to help troubleshoot problems with her '98 SL2 for some time. Recently, it's been going through a phase of needing some new parts, which is not all that surprising given the age of the car. When we took it back to a local shop after they replaced the tensioner pulley and belt a new problem arose - choking and stalling out.

SaturnFans.com will be offline for a few hours tonight for some emergency server maintenance. Work will be done to fix issues related to degrading hard drive performance and should be completed by morning. Thank you for you understanding and support!

If you're interested in keeping up with the latest news surrounding Saturn and the expansive Ion, Outlook, and Sky recalls, I invite you to subscribe to GMBeat's Saturn newsletter either by e-mail or through your favorite news reader. If you choose to receive e-mails, you'll get Saturn news delivered right to your inbox whenever news happens.

We're interested in talking to owners of 2003-2007 Saturn Ions who have had their ignition replaced or have experienced the engine shutoff problems. In addition, according the NBC News, there were also about 500 people in the country who were given one of the plastic plugs (shown above) a few years ago to put into their key ring from GM. Did anyone get one of these?

There's a lot of confusion and misinformation posted on the Internet about the recent General Motors recalls and ongoing Federal investigations. As Saturn owners, there are three pieces of this puzzle that are critically important to us.